Join the Club: Goat is the New Lamb

After all of our cheerleading of goat last week, we had a little laugh when we woke up to The New York Times dining section's top article: "How I Learned to Love Goat Meat." We'd love to call ourselves trendsetters, but as the Times article notes, the rest of the world has been eating goat forever (it's the most widely consumed meat in the world). We're just now catching on.

The article reminded us of another piece we read several months ago, about Bill Niman coming out of retirement to raise goats. At the time, we thought, "Huh. Wonder who's going to buy those." And yet, here we are. Restaurants are featuring goat on their menus, and home cooks are starting to ask for it at the market.

We learned a few things reading this very funny article. Goat is lower in fat than chicken and higher in protein than beef. There are a couple of places in the city that sell fresh goat meat for less than $5 a pound (compare that to lamb!) And, if you're looking for an accurate description of its taste, try this: "Think lamb, but with a tang of earthy darkness. Think lamb, but with a rustle in the bushes. Think... jungle lamb."

The author also echoes some of what Faith wrote last week, how handling and prepping goat meat makes you especially conscious of the fact that this was a creature, not a shapeless piece of meat. He even mentions the difficulty in removing his goat's caul fat, a web-like membrane that we just learned about from a chef last night. More on that later this week...